Life and Love inside Cambodia's 1993 Election

This is the untold story of what went on behind the scenes when the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia, UNTAC, tried to manage free elections in Cambodia in the early 90s. Told with insight, humor, and a dash of romance, Cambodia and the Year of UNTAC staggers from adventure to adventure as the UN seeks to bring hope to a country reeling from war. With deep feelings for the Cambodian people, this true-life tale – now in a new edition with additional photos and a special afterword – brings to life what it was like to be part of the team that ended Cambodia’s civil war and helped bring stability to that beautiful country.

In equal measures serious, touching, and hilarious.

– David Joiner, author of Lotusland

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Simply in terms of recounting a basic narrative of that period, Riddle’s book is perhaps the most successful I have read so far. Clearly and dramatically, he retells the sequence of events and the popular moods associated with them, as they were perceived by many of us working in Phnom Penh.

– John Marston, Pacific Affairs

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Riddle has done what no other author writing about that war-torn nation could manage: he brought welcome humor, albeit of the black variety, to an otherwise decidedly and deeply depressing subject.

– Thomas M. Grace, author of Kent State: Death and Dissent in the Long Sixties

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The writer’s knack for storytelling and expert pacing makes Cambodia and the Year of UNTAC a great read until the last page.